Old School Assumptions

...and Other Thoughts of Chaotic Delusion
The authors of White Box make certain assumptions regarding the people likely to play their new game. Chief among those assumptions is that those playing the game will be familiar with wargaming as it is practiced as a hobby (circa 1974). This means awareness of and often experience gaming with miniature figures representing various soldier-types from history and with maps. Traditionally wargaming is centered on subjects taken from history and a certain level of historical research is expected of those participating (fantasy battle gaming developed alongside RPGs). "Realism" becomes a thing sought after among such knowledgeable hobbyists and characterized the design of many early RPGs. Familiarity with tabletop measurement in inches or centimeters, the concept of scale and use of dice to represent the uncertainties of war accompanies participation in gaming with miniatures. That the designers possess these assumptions is quite obvious when reading the original LBBs.
White Box authors are also making an assumption that their intended audience has some experience with, and interest in, the fantastic as found in mythology and fantasy literature. The sources of influence listed in Appendix N of the 1979 Dungeon Master's Guide contains a list of those literary antecedents to the hobby.
Perhaps another way to separate an old school approach from a new school one is by looking at the assumptions made by their respective authors. Today designers of "old school" games assume their intended audience has some experience with the fantasy adventure games of the 1970's and '80's if not the same wargames and literature interests which brought many into the hobby during that era, while so-called "new school" games generally make no such assumption. WotC may be an exception with 5e having been designed using knowledge of the old school movement in the hobby. Nostalgia often plays a part in the old school marketing strategy if marketing comes into play. Many products labeled OSR (Old School Renaissance) seem to be labors of love and are perhaps written as an expression of the author's desire to share their "improvements" on the original game. I say this because many are available as free downloads.
New school (and some OSR) games often start with an assumption that the game is an introduction to the hobby and fantasy in general and therefore include a lengthy "What is fantasy roleplaying" section. If the current game author assumes anything in terms of an interest in the fantastic it is different from the assumptions of the 1970's. Today, fantasy has become somewhat mainstream evident in many video games and it is hard to find anyone who has not some familiarity with the magic of Harry Potter or the movies of Peter Jackson involving hobbits. Electronic games are a part of popular culture and many draw from the role-playing games of yesteryear for inspiration. Playing the part of a pixel hero in a video game setting is more common than familiarity with the map and miniature wargames of old. Designers of new school games assume familiarity with such sources and frequently build upon this assumption.
In 1977 when I discovered White Box and the hobby of adventure gaming I met very few fellow White Box devotees who had not read the stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien. Those authors together with Fritz Leiber, L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt are less well known today. Many of my fellow role-players, younger than myself, now come to the hobby reading R.A. Salvatore, J.K. Rowling, Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. Many play computer (and console) RPGs before tabletop. Many are experienced collectible card game players. How one thinks about the hobby and what one looks for in the hobby game is undoubtedly influenced by our prior experiences and the wider popular culture we are a part of.
The games I read and play today differ in many ways from those contemporary with White Box and the first Advanced Game. The single "unified mechanic" has largely replaced the modular approach to design. Character class, when used, is generally seen as something one can "dip" into in order to smartly build up character skills and abilities (through multi-classing) rather than class as a full-time career requiring years of training and full-time devotion. Races are accepted as variant humans with a few stat adjustments rather than totally alien beings. The idea of game balance has changed from one of experience point tables and level limits to that of managing threat, challenge and reward (wealth by level) and all characters being roughly equal in ability at all levels. I have already addressed death and dying in my last post.
The old school approach places much more power in the hands of the referee through a rulings not rules approach and a general do-it-yourself attitude towards campaign design and sand-box style adventuring. One of the goals of many new games is to limit the negative impacts of an inexperienced or poor referee. While not a bad aspiration in and of itself, I personally find this approach often leads to a less inspired and less creatively run session/campaign. It is no secret I generally favor the old school values over new school, so my opinion is undoubtedly biased. As regular readers of this blog may note, I am very excited about many new RPG titles and run them as referee more often than I do my beloved White Box. As an example of games actually played I have refereed more Dragon Age than White Box this year and enjoyed Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classics, RuneQuest, Castles & Crusades, Star Wars, Shadowrun, The One Ring, 5e, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, Pendragon, and Fantasy Age in that order of frequency as a player.